This October, the iSchool’s Continuing Education team launched a new conference, Upgrade: Enhancing Library Services with Technology, bringing over 100 library and information professionals together for the inaugural two-day event. The conference exemplifies the iSchool’s ongoing commitment to addressing pressing questions about technology’s role in society and impact on communities.
As information technologies reshape how people access knowledge, library professionals, including those at Upgrade, face urgent challenges. How can they help bridge digital divides? And how can they steer powerful tools toward serving the public good?
Two keynote speakers offered compelling perspectives on these questions. Dr. Brandy McNeil, President of the Public Library Association, issued a call to action on digital equity, noting that tens of millions of Americans still lack broadband access, especially in rural areas. “We are the builders of futures,” McNeil told attendees, emphasizing librarians’ key role in helping communities and families navigate technological change.
Closing the conference, Dr. Alex Hanna, Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute and a UW-Madison PhD alum, offered a sharp critique of AI hype. Hanna challenged narratives of technological inevitability, arguing that what’s being sold as AI is often just “a fancy wrapper to a set of spreadsheets,” posing risks to workers and causing environmental harm. However, “AI is not inevitable,” she emphasized.
Between keynotes, attendees chose from more than 20 sessions on topics ranging from on-demand software licensing to building media preservation kits, from using Minecraft for community engagement to evaluating AI chatbots. Several iSchool faculty, staff and alumni presented or led sessions at the conference, including Teaching Faculty IV Dorothea Salo, Librarian Greer Christensen-Gibbons, and Teaching Faculty III Megan Adams. The breadth of sessions reflected libraries’ evolving role in enabling communities to access and critically assess new technologies.
Approximately 20 iSchool graduate students also attended Upgrade, whether for individual sessions of interest or the whole conference.
The Upgrade conference is one example of how the iSchool—as a founding department of the Shcoo of Computer, Data & information Sciences—is at the forefront of important conversations about technology and humanity. Through its academic programs, research endeavors, and lifelong learning opportunities like Upgrade, the department is creating spaces where students and practitioners can study how information, data, and people interact.
Learn more about continuing education opportunities at the iSchool.